Somebody Killed His Editor

by Josh Lanyon

  “Are you done?” she asked with great restraint.

  “Pretty much. Yes.”

  “I didn’t kill Peaches Sadler or Steven Krass.”

  “If you say it, I believe you.”

  “I do say it.”

  “I believe you.”

  “I don’t want anyone knowing I was out on the patio because, as you say, it probably looks suspicious, and it’s true that if someone started digging, it would rake up all that old history—which would not be good for Espie or myself.”

  I translated “not be good” to mean “would indeed uncover motives for murder” for herself and Espie. I said, “Okay. I’ll do the gentlemanly thing and try to protect you. What the hell were you doing out there this morning?”

  Her eyes shifted from mine. She said uncomfortably, “I went for a walk.”

  “What?”

  “I know. But it’s true. I woke up with a headache, and I thought…maybe a walk before it starts raining again…”

  “Where did you walk?”

  “I walked down to the vineyards and looked at the buffalo.”

  “They have buffalo in the vineyard?”

  “Of course not. The buffalo are in the pasture—” She gave it up. “I was on my way back to the house, and I decided it was faster to go in the back way, so I cut around the side of the house and there you were.”

  “I was walking back to my cabin.”

  “I don’t care what you were doing,” she said. “I don’t care if you did knock off Krass. Even if I didn’t hate his guts, you’re my client after all. Not that it wouldn’t make one hell of a sensational real life—”

  “He was probably killed in the middle of the night,” I interrupted.

  “Well, then.” She shrugged.

  I glanced at the clock on the nightstand and remembered I was supposed to be waiting meekly in the bar for Field Marshal Moriarity. “All right, then,” I said. “Mum’s the word.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  J.X. was not in the bar when I arrived. I coaxed a gin and tonic out of Rita and was halfway through it when he finally showed up looking grim and wet. He asked for a towel and ordered a Jack Daniels.

  When he sat down across from me in the booth, his damp hair was glossy and spiky from its recent toweling. His face was flushed with the cold and his exertions. His gaze was as hard as tiger’s eye. I had an uncomfortable—and unsettlingly vivid—memory of what it had felt like to be in his arms again, the silkiness of his beard as his mouth found mine, and how soft and dark his eyes had seemed gazing—

  “All right,” he said, jolting me out of my thoughts. “From the top.”

  “Are you a top?” I asked innocently. “I did wonder because you’re pretty aggressive once you get g—”

  His color went from a healthy honey-brown to a dusty brick color. “Yeah, you’re a shoo-in for class clown, Christopher,” he said thickly. “And you’re looking pretty good for prime suspect too.”

  That brought me back to earth fast. “How do you figure that?” I demanded indignantly. “You know as well as I do Krass had to have been killed during the night—or maybe in the early hours of the morning. I didn’t get that good a look at him.”

  “This isn’t one of your books, Christopher. It’s not an academic puzzle. A man has been killed. Someone in this house killed him.”

  “That lets me out. I’m staying in the cabins.” He was staring at me with disbelief. I said shortly, “All right. I talk too much when I’m scared, and yes, I am scared.” I found it ridiculously difficult to meet his eyes. “Look, I walked over for breakfast, that’s all. I’m not taking part in the conference. I never intended to. My sole purpose for being here was to talk to Krass.” I drew a deep breath. “Well, you saw how that went down.”

  J.X. didn’t say anything, and I couldn’t look at him. Once I had been the golden boy, the rising star on the mystery scene, and he had been an eager and admiring acolyte. He had thought I was wonderful; my predilection for spinster sleuths and cats notwithstanding, he had wanted—well, better not to think of that. Now he was the blazing success story, the boy wonder rocketing to the top, while I was the aging has-been. The wax had melted off my wings, and I was plummeting toward obscurity and the remainder shelf.

  “I finished breakfast, and there was no reason to hang around. If you want to know the truth, it’s humiliating. Everybody in the fucking place knows what happened.” I sighed. “I couldn’t face running into Krass again. I decided to go back to my cabin and hide out until the weather cleared enough for me to get out of here.”

  “Kit…” The reluctant sympathy in his voice was more than I could handle.

  I talked over him quickly. “I went out the back way because I was standing right there when it occurred to me I didn’t have to hang around pretending to be a good sport and providing Krass with another target. That’s it. I walked outside, started down the patio, and I saw him.”

  “Why didn’t you go for help?”

  “I…I was going to.” I did meet his eyes then. “I was shocked. I know I write about this stuff, but it’s startling when you come face-to-face with it in real life.”

  His expression was sardonic, but he didn’t stop me.

  “I couldn’t have stood there for more than a minute. Maybe two before that chick started screaming.”

  J.X. said without inflection, “The girl who screamed said that you were standing there talking to the body.”

  My jaw dropped. Casting my mind back, I realized what J.X.’s witness must have seen and the interpretation she had clearly placed on it. Did I give Rachel up, or did I continue to cover for her? I said, “It wasn’t much of a conversation. I think I was probably saying something like, oh shit, what do we do now?”

  He said gravely, “She said she thought she heard you say, are you going for help, or am I?”

  I couldn’t help it; I started to laugh. Granted, it was probably close to borderline hysteria. I got myself under control enough to inquire, “And what did Krass say?”

  “It’s not funny, Kit.”

  “It’s kind of funny,” I pointed out.

  “Was someone else there?” J.X. asked. “Was there someone standing on the walkway out of view of the deck?”

  “You were there. Did you see anyone?”

  He didn’t respond, viewing me meditatively. “Did you touch Krass?”

  “No.” That I could answer with confidence.

  “Did you lean over his body to try and get a look at his face?”

  I shook my head.

  “Then explain to me what this was doing underneath Krass’s body.” He set a tiny platinum and diamond ear stud on the table between us. It sat winking in the muted light like an unlucky star.

  Instinctively, I put a hand up to my ear. The lobe was bare. I hadn’t bothered with fripperies that morning.

  “It’s yours, isn’t it?”

  “I…think so,” I admitted. I couldn’t seem to tear my gaze away from the earring.

  “I recognize it as the one you were wearing when you arrived here yesterday.”

  “You noticed my earrings?” I asked blankly.

  There was a hint of color in his face. “You never used to wear jewelry.” He shrugged. “Yeah, I noticed it.” His voice was hard when he continued, “Where did you lose it?”

  “I lost one in the woods.”

  “One?”

  “There were two of them. I lost one thrashing around the woods, and I took the other out.”

  “Where? When?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Is it in your cabin?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. At his obvious exasperation, I added, “A lot of stuff has happened to me since I arrived here. I think I took it out when I showered last night.”

  “Why would you take it out?”

  “Because I’d lost the other one? I don’t know. I didn’t think about it.” A question occurred. “Was I wearing it last night at dinner?”

  He
swept the stud off the table and back in his pocket. “I didn’t notice. I was pissed off with you because you went around telling everyone Peaches was murdered.”

  “I did not.”

  “I thought you did,” he qualified. He narrowed his eyes. “I don’t think you were wearing it. You looked really nice in that gray shirt, by the way.”

  Color warmed my face. “Thanks.”

  He finished his Jack Daniels and set the glass down. “Look, here’s the way it shapes up. You found both bodies—that’s not good. As you know, since you’ve harped enough on it in those books of yours, discovering a body generally puts a person in a suspicious position. On top of that, you had an unfriendly history with Peaches—”

  “I never met her!”

  “And you were overheard threatening Steven Krass.”

  I nearly dropped my glass. “I what?”

  “You said you didn’t want to drink with him because you’d be tempted to poison him.”

  “I was kidding. Sort of. That’s not the same thing as threatening—let alone trying—to do it.”

  “But do you understand the way it sounds?”

  “Yes, and I don’t think it sounds suspicious.”

  “Then you’ve got your head stuck in the sand.”

  “Well, that’s better than some places I’ve stuck it.”

  He bit his lip, and I thought for a minute he was going to laugh. However, he said, “Kit, you’ve got to take this more seriously.”

  That did it. “J.X., do you honest to God think I murdered anybody?”

  He gave me a long dark look and then shook his head. “No. It’s obvious Peaches was killed Thursday night. And I sure as hell can’t see a way you could have lured her away from the lodge or snuck in and kidnapped her.”

  “So it’s a matter of logistics? Thanks for your faith in me.”

  “Give me a break,” he retorted. “Miss Butterball is supposed to be some kind of detective idiot savant, right? You ought to know by now all kinds of people commit murders. And let’s not forget the fact that you’re a selfish, callous bastard, which, right there, are pretty good traits for a murderer.”

  That time I did drop my glass. It fell to the table, and ice spilled out on the carpet. I managed to get out, “No, how could I forget that. I’m a selfish, callous bastard? How the fuck dare you?”

  “Hey, if the condom fits…”

  I was gasping as though he’d slugged me in the guts—which is actually how it kind of felt. “What, I’m supposed to have taken advantage of your boyish innocence, is that it? If anybody rushed anybody into it—”

  He shrugged. “Ancient history,” he said easily. “It gives me insight into your character, that’s all. Anyway, we can verify your alibi for Peaches’ murder based on your plane flight manifest, the car rental info, credit card trail—that kind of thing. And since these murders are almost certainly linked together, if you’re cleared of Peaches’ homicide, it’s unlikely you’ll be nailed for Krass’s, although your motive is stronger and there’s more evidence—”

  I don’t think I heard half of it. I was sitting there stricken with memory, with the fact that he believed…whatever the hell it was he believed about that long-ago weekend.

  There was a pause while he waited for me to respond to something he’d asked me. I said haltingly, “Listen, J.X., if I…if I did anything to hurt you, I apologize. That was not my intent. For reasons I won’t bore you with, that weekend meant a lot to me—”

  He laughed, not very kindly. “Hey, believe me, I got over it a long time ago. And even if I was carrying some grudge, which I’m not, I wouldn’t stand by and let you be framed for murder.”

  I repeated stupidly, “Framed for murder?”

  “Have you listened to anything I’ve said?” he asked impatiently. “That earring didn’t happen to land underneath Krass’s body. If you didn’t drop it, then someone planted it. Someone is trying to frame you for murder.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  It took Rachel a few seconds to answer the door.

  “Bloody hell, Christopher,” she exclaimed, stepping back as I pushed my way inside her room. “What’s the matter with you?”

  “I know you’re trying to frame me for Krass’s murder.”

  She shrieked, “What?” in much the tone the empresses of old used when the only chocolates left were the marshmallow-caramels.

  “I left that goddamned ear stud here when I showered after I first arrived.”

  She was staring at me as though convinced I was insane.

  I said clearly, “I left it on the glass shelf in your bathroom. So don’t give me that look.”

  She continued to give me that look.

  “Why are you doing this to me?” I demanded. “What did I do to you? You want me to write a damned regency demon P.I. thing, I will. I’ll even throw in a werewolf. Just…stop.”

  She whipped around and went to the dresser, sifting through the debris of jewelry, bottled water, receipts, and assorted cosmetics. “It’s not here!” she exclaimed. She turned around to face me. “I put it up here in this glass so it wouldn’t get lost.”

  “Are you sure it’s not there?” I joined her at the dresser, and we both sifted through the pile of junk. There was no water glass—empty or otherwise—and while there were plenty of earrings, none of them was mine.

  “It was here,” she insisted. “I did see it in the bathroom on the shelf, and I picked it up.”

  The fact that she admitted seeing the earring calmed me way down.

  “Was your room cleaned today?”

  “If you can call it that. They made the bed and brought clean towels.”

  “Maybe the maid took it.”

  “She must have.” She was eyeing me with speculative amusement. “Did you really think I’d framed you?”

  “Hey, you’re not in the clear yet.” I was thinking rapidly. If Krass had been killed and my earring planted during the night, no maid was responsible for clearing away that glass and stud. “Do you know who cleaned your room?”

  “Probably the kid. What’s her name? Donna?”

  “Debbie.”

  “Right. She did it the morning before.”

  I said suspiciously, “If I tell J.X. you had my earring, you’re not going to do something weird like deny it, are you?”

  “Why would I?”

  “I don’t know. It happens a lot in old mystery novels.”

  “You read too many old mystery novels,” Rachel informed me. “You need to read some Kate White or M.J. Rose.” She thrust a stack of paperbacks at me.

  “You just don’t want to have to carry these back on the plane.” I headed for the door. “I’m bringing J.X. back here, and I want you to tell him the truth.”

  She stared at me and then smiled a slow, evil grin.

  “Very funny,” I said and slammed out of the room.

  * * * * *

  I found J.X. in the lobby. He had the front door open, and he was speaking to Rita, who was behind the front desk. At the sound of my footsteps, he glanced around and, if possible, his expression grew even grimmer.

  “I thought you said you were going back to your cabin.”

  “I was,” I lied. “But then it suddenly occurred to me what I did with that other earring.”

  “And what was that?”

  “I left it in Rachel’s room. I took it out when I showered after I first arrived here. She remembers seeing it. In fact—” I turned to Rita. “Who cleaned the rooms this morning? Rachel says she left the earring in a glass on her dresser.”

  Rita’s hatchet face grew sharp enough to chop wood. “What are you implying, mister?”

  “I’m not implying anything. I’m wondering if the earring got picked up or thrown out by accident, that’s all.”

  “Kit.”

  “Nobody picked up any earring by accident or any other way.”

  “Well, couldn’t you ask whoever did the rooms?”

  “Kit.”

  I turned
impatiently. “What?”

  “I need to talk to you.” There must be something to that whole cop mystique because although I was certainly older, at that flat, authoritative tone I suddenly felt like I was being summoned to the principal’s office.

  I said, “But don’t you think we should find out what happened to that ear stud?”

  “I’ll look into it for you. Come on.” He held the door to the lodge open.

  I couldn’t read his expression at all as I stepped outside, but the very impassivity of his features made me uneasy.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “I’ll explain it to you on the way to your cabin.”

  We went down the wooden steps and crossed the yard, and I threw a couple of uncertain glances J.X.’s way. His profile looked older, resolute—Ernest Shackleton preparing the James Caird for launch.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  He looked at me then. “You were seen last night.”

  “I was…seen?” Recollection hit. I could feel myself changing color. “Oh. I was going to tell you, but you brought up the earring and I wanted to settle that before I told you something else that was liable to seem incriminating.”

  “For Christ’s sake. You didn’t think the fact that you were trotting around this place about the time Steven bought it was something you needed to mention up front?”

  “Yes. I did. But I also knew how it was liable to look.”

  “What the fuck were you doing outside at three in the morning?”

  The harshness in his voice took me aback. “What I wasn’t doing was taking my little axe and giving my editor forty whacks.” There was no softening, no understanding in his face. He looked…stony. I realized I was in serious trouble, and the fight drained out of me.

  “I woke up, and…oh hell. I felt like shit. I needed Tylenol and ice and…company.”

  “Company?”

  “What the shit is so strange about that? It’s a writing conference, for God’s sake. If you ask me, the strange behavior belongs to these so-called writers who went to bed at midnight. I thought the bar would still be open. I was…nervous out here on my own.”